Let me see if I get this straight..... A "currency" was created out of thin air and now people are spending hundreds of dollars each for one reason: the belief that some other fool will pay more for it later.

Sounds like a perfect way to gamble a couple hundred dollars and see if this Ponzi Scheme takes off turning my couple hundred into a couple thousand (or more).

Could I lose it? Of course. But I am having a lot more fun than gambling a couple hundred on a casino boat. Still likely to lose my money but a whole lot better chance of walking away with more money. Play the game. Have fun. Plan on losing your money. But if I catch it just right, and get out JUST IN TIME, then I will benefit while the last ones in lose their money.

It's a Ponzi Scheme and just remember that - and have fun..............

So what makes it better than any other real world currencies? Nothing really. So everyone runs around crazy waving their hands that USD is dying (it will eventually collapse at some point, or other huge implications will happen), but bitcoin is the same, it can be destroyed by the same problems a real world currency can be, its highly volatile and isn't backed by anything (alas usd is not either).

Besides, you can always hear how the first ppl that started with it very early had some real gains. Sounds pretty much like a pyramid scheme/scam.

And remember people - think for yourself - did the original creators really wanted to "make the world a better place" or "offer an alternative to fiat currencies to help people" or just to make money.

For me - well it might not be 100% scam, but it will probably fail anyway as a bad business project.

Consider this an entirely invented medium of exchange that has not basis in fundamental value or agreed and recognised unit of exchange. It is an unregulated finite supply of nothing, artificially inflated to exploit unsuspecting persons. The only persons who win are he early inflators who get out leaving a void of nothing while the unsuspecting persons are left with literally nothing.

A real national currency, if not backed by gold silver, is backed by the economy and military might and legal system of the issuer. This is backed by nothing, but "faith".

And also looking at the various exchanges there is a large gap, for example on one exchange now the bid/asked ( in $) is 115.5by 115.8, and on another it is 113.3.. By 113.3..--a potential instant profit on arbitrage--what is that all about??

the latest nonsense, defended by the parochially "knowledgeable"

There is no supporting, stable (= governmental) infrastructure. Security depends upon software deployed on readily hacked Microsoft Windows platforms. Security depends upon continual re-verification of transaction logs that can be forged and destroyed. "Money" has value because an entity with control over the economic behavior of millions or billions of people--and with governance over trillions or quadrillions of dollars--is willing to back it. Bitcoins are beyond foolishness. Why not peanutbuttercoins?

This is an INCREDIBLE scam.

The difficulty with Bitcoin is the production of Bitcoins, which are unregulated and not transparent to the world. There is nothing to prevent a sudden surge in Bitcoins being dumped by a creator, a major cash-in, and anyone who pays in legal fiat will be left with nothing. Oh, Bitcoins.

Yes. Bitcoin could be a scam.

I do not know a whole lot about Bitcoin, but there is always a chance something new is a scam. If people are looking to use it then they should do as much research before hand to get all their facts straight. Right now, there are many scams out in the world and it is important to be on our toes.

You lose more than you can get

All this bitcoin is a big scam, you support the network with hardware, time and electricity to process the transactions but eventually you give way more than you get! The only people who benefit from this currency are the initiators and the people causing the inflation, its a smart scam, a digital one.

Yes Bitcoin is a scam.

Yes, I think that Bitcoin is a scam and makes people believe that they are receiving free money. Bitcoin is just as open to being scammed as normal, tangible money and I think that just because it is a different way of offering currency people think that they are getting a deal when they are not.

Whatever Happened to Ethics?

BitCoins take advantage of this emerging digital market by selling this "opportunity" to be part of the next BIG THING by preying on the down economy and regular people who will willingly trust, for an amount they normally could afford to lose, that exchange will fulfill its role. Maybe it does for a little bit but meanwhile A LOT of newly entrants are losing money in unviable fluctuations while people in the know, or the technogeek-geniuses, are making a killing by "pretending" to get their digital blocks compromised = only 46% of the pending transactions get refunded, if you're lucky enough to get a refund. Try searching up about these communities' no email back response on your cancelled transaction with your money floating in the air.

Now, add drug lord money and corrupt gov't officials gambling their bribe money online for complete anonymity---do you see the bigger picture now? I'm sure there are bots tracking all our posts here in the digital cloud right now with the BIG 500 Companies doing analytics on the viability of this digital extension.

Would you contribute to this QUESTIONABLE underground "over the cloud" trade? I call this the new online gambling. I just hope your mode of payment wasn't digital or you'd have Big Brother all over you not long from now cryptocollecting your info for which 10 years for now could be used to: (fill in blanks here): ie. Take money from your online account incrementally over 40 years without you knowing or just plainly stealing your identity. Remember these underground economy grows exponentially.

If this free market model constantly attracts new people with ever increasing acceptance of low integrity transactions and the medium of exchange eventually runs out of memory to create new mediocre trading platforms (Bitcoins can only have about $21M digital currency and we now have about $11M floating), what happens next?

Bitcoin is a pure information system and 100% open source. Basically it is a simulation of gold, but without the all the baggage that gold comes with (not seizable, heavy or counterfeitable). Bitcoin sets the bar very high as a currency and due to no middle men the transaction costs are very low.

How exactly could a an open source p2o cryptography protocol be a scam?

Its a protocol people, and one of the best ones yet invented, the only people calling this a scam are the ones who don´t know anything about it. Is it risky to invest your money into? Yes. Does that make it a scam? No. This shouldn´t even be on the table for debate

Scam requires hidden information, but bitcoin is open sourced.

Bitcoin is open sourced. All the details are in the paper and no one is out there to con you or anything. Even if the founder wants to generate more bitcoins now he can't without going through more than 50% consensus. You can choose not to buy in to it but that's different from a scam.

It's also designed to be used as a currency, not an investment. Right now it's at its infancy hence the value fluctuates a lot but it's not designed to help people make loads of money. If you are getting in hoping to get really rich (and didn't) then it's really your own fault.

Bitcoin also doesn't magically help money launderers and drug dealers either. Guess what's better than bitcoin for that? Cash. Cash transactions are untraceable and private unlike bitcoin, so unless we want to ban cash not sure why bitcoin is blamed for that. The hard part of money laundering is usually not in tracing the money anyway, but rather justifying your source of income. For example if you have no job and suddenly bought an expensive house (with cash or bitcoin) you better have a compelling story to tell IRS...

The Bubble Theory of Money

Bitcoin is a bubble, and so is every other form of money. A bubble is when people buy an asset, not to use it, but to trade it for some other asset at a later date. Like Las Vegas real estate in 2007, or Amazon.Com stock in 1999, or tulip bulbs in 1637. And also like US dollars and like gold. If an asset is held only to trade it away later, and it fails to become money, the bubble pops and it becomes worthless. If it becomes money... Well, the bubble can continue, weathering every adverse condition imaginable for 6000+ years, as with gold.

Bitcoin is digital cash, not a scam.

With bitcoin people are actually in control on their own money. It allows for less dependency on third parties and middlemen who always take a slice of the profit for themselves. If you're looking for the scam, you need only look at the fiat currencies used by countries. The reason people are buying bitcoin is because they realize it's utility as a currency.

Bitcoin is open source

Sceptics can read the source code, and evaluate it. Everything in bitcoin is completely open, that's the beauty of it. If it is a scam, why can I buy actual things with it right now?There's going to be a bumpy road ahead, much like any new technology before it goes mainstream.

Its real money

Its a decentralized (meaning nobody can scam you) digital currency that floats like a real currency, except no one country backs it, the people who own bitcoins back it, and add value to it at the same time. They can exist completely without any one central authority. Completely decentralized, yup.

Having messed around with the code, have seen nothing that makes it a scam.

Saying that Bitcoin in itself is a scam is just ignorant. Now saying that some people viewed as innovators of Bitcoin gone rogue are scammers is more appropriate. People as mark kerpeles (mt. Fox) and such. They used Bitcoin as their scam. Much like people used cash as their scam or gold as their scam.

I have made my own cryptocurrency(s**t coin if you will) for fun and to grasp a better understanding of the protocol and how it works. I haven't found anything malicious in that code or anything that would give somebody the upper hand.

Now if you are thinking, "well somebody can edit the code to steal your coins or make fake coins" that is not how it works. Yes they can make a "fork" of Bitcoin but it will be on a separate blockchain. Meaning you cannot transfer those "forked" coins to the original Bitcoin.

Well what is the blockchain? The blockchain stores all the wallet addresses, transactions, miner power and so on. It cannot be edited but only added onto with new wallets, transactions, miners etc. It is not a website, but stored inside of the application itself on each and every computer or miner with the application. The websites you can find the blockchain on only show a graphical representation of what the blockchain has stored in it. The blockchain can only be changed if 51% or more of the users(miners) decide they want this new blockchain as the main blockchain. Called a 51% attack. This means the more people who use Bitcoin, the more secure the protocol is. Which, at this time, it is very secure and Bitcoin itself has proved unbackable.

The only way people can "hack" Bitcoin is to hack the websites or wallets and use their data or stored coins for themselves. This happens in everyday life everywhere and should be null.

Now, onto the wallets. The wallets are NOT the Bitcoin protocol. They only use the Bitcoin protocol as a base of information. You could use command prompt for your wallet if you know how to code it. This is why you can find multiple wallet providers with different features and security. They are not changing the protocol itself, but telling the protocol where to send the coins and storing that info in the blockchain. It is possible that a rogue wallet provider can program something malicious into the wallet itself to steal your wallet data to steal your coins but if you stick with well known wallets, you will not need to worry. Online wallets can be dangerous so it is best to keep your wallet on a physical computer or USB.

If someone makes a fake wallet that doesn't actually store real Bitcoin in it, you would be able to tell just by viewing the blockchain on a website.

I have more to say, but not enough room on here. I will post about the human side of the ordeal I the comments.

No it isn't

It isnt a scam, Its a very smart idea.

No government back up, that means the government ends, youll still have your money. Think of it this way, the confederate states created their very own currency in the little bit of time they were around, once the US won the civil war, that currency was worthless. That can not happen with bitcoin, as it isnt designated to any government/country.

U.S. Authorities have seized two accounts linked to a major operator in the booming Bitcoin digital currency market, Tokyo-based exchange Mt. Gox. The move may prevent the firm from facilitating the purchase and sale of Bitcoins in U.S. dollars at a time when use of the currency and its value has mushroomed.

Bitcoin, which unlike conventional money is bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of any central authority, has grown popular among users who lack faith in the established banking system.

The price of the volatile currency ballooned in March as a result of the Cyprus bank crisis. Authorities worry that a lack of regulation has left the currency vulnerable to money launderers and other criminals.Http://www.Infowars.Com/u-s-seizes-operator-accounts-of-major-japanese-bitcoin-exchange/

“Bitcoin Mining Is Dead”http://www.Youtube.Com/watch?V=4fwAseQoUCs

And, all you people who think it is cool are mindless fools. Anyone that think governments can’t shut down Bitcoin must not know how the internet works.

The US government or any government can take control over the high level Bitcoin internet domains and the domains of those who exchange bitcoin for dollars, e.G., Namecheap, LocalBitcoins. Once those domains are taken over, guess what? You do not have a market for your bitcoins and you won’t be able to exchange them for cash.

Once, the government takes over these domains in their countries, no one will be able to trade in or exchange bitcoins for dollars; so your bitcoins become worthless.

The US government did this to block Americans playing at 3 internet poker sites on Poker Black Friday – April 15, 2011. Americans were blocked from playing at FullTilt, PokerStars, and Ultimate Bet on the Internet. The US government can do that to Bitcoin, and I am not talking about the small individual personal bitcoin accounts; I am talking about the large commercial bitcoin accounts, especially those sites that exchange bitcoin for currency. By law, America banks were blocked from exchanging money with those internet poker sites.

Who owns the single largest Bitcoin wallet on the internet? The U.S. government.

In September, the FBI shut down the Silk Road online drug marketplace, and it started seizing bitcoins belonging to the Dread Pirate Roberts — the operator of the illicit online marketplace, who they say is an American man named Ross Ulbricht.

The seizure sparked an ongoing public discussion about the future of Bitcoin, the world’s most popular digital currency, but it had an unforeseen side-effect: It made the FBI the holder of the world’s biggest Bitcoin wallet.

The FBI now controls more than 144,000 bitcoins that reside at a bitcoin address that consolidates much of the seized Silk Road bitcoins. Those 144,000 bitcoins are worth close to $100 million at Tuesday’s exchange rates. Another address, containing Silk Road funds seized earlier by the FBI, contains nearly 30,000 bitcoins ($20 million).

That doesn’t make the FBI the world’s largest bitcoin holder. This honor is thought to belong to bitcoin’s shadowy inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, who is estimated to have mined 1 million bitcoins in the currency’s early days. His stash is spread across many wallets. But it does put the federal agency ahead of the Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who in July said that they’d cornered about 1 percent of all bitcoins (there are 12 million bitcoins in circulation).

What kills me is that this little punk - the inventor of Bitcoin - Satoshi Nakamoto is a millionaire and he has done nothing to earn it. Are all you people just to stupid to see what a scam Bitcoin is?

You Bitcoin folks must think that Bitcoin is more powerful than governments; it ain’t! Especially, the USA government and its FBI will crush Bitcoin.

Then there is the fact that most retail merchants are not buying off on this bitcoin bull. It is hard to even find a handful of retail merchants that accept bitcoin. I think there are only 1,475 businesses in the world that will accept bitcoin, and most, if not all of these, are small merchants and none are large retail chains.

Amazon itself does not accept bitcoin; but, one or two of the independents that sell through Amazon do. Amazon will never accept Bitcoin instead of major credit and debit cards.

And, the list goes on of silly little stores that few people will ever shop at.

Bitcoin will never be accepted by Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, Sears, J.C. Penney, Home Depot, Menards, or any major retail chains, or McDonalds, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, or any restaurants. It will never be accepted by any airlines or hotels. You will never be able to buy gas at a gas station with bitcoin. No retail banks will accept bitcoin.

It will not matter in the near future because Bitcoin will be shut down by the USA government or if will self-Implode soon because of the wild market speculation and lack of controls.

It is mostly repeat comments from non-members that is favoring the "No" answers, which is why non-members should not be allowed to post anything an DDO. These people used to show up with a name "Anonymous." But, I complained about this before, and I guess DDO thinks that by removing the name "Anonymous" then we won't know that these are non-members who are posting answers to the question more than once. DDO has no way of stopping these "Anonymous" or now "no name" non-members from posting one to hundreds of answers to the same question. While DDO members can only post one "Yes" or "No" answer.

Do make these question fair, DDO should either stop non-members from posting anything at this site, or allow members to post as many "Yes" or "No" answers to all questions as they want.

You can never get a fair reading on any question, because non-members can vote more than once on any question, hundreds of times if they want.

The other reason there are more "no" answers is because a bunch of teenagers who don't know anything about how governments work or anything about the monetary system and how regulations are needed to protect people. These teenagers have no clue as to why we have money laundering laws and a Federal Banking system. They just think it is cool, like smoking pot, which is destroying today's youth.

This is Bitcoin mining. Yes their are a certain amount of coins or tokens to trade in this version virtual currency. I say this version because there is ltcoin and others that have other version created by private people who wish to start this trend. Look at Kains or something made by a rapper for exampleBitcoin’s official site however says this in a nutshell. If you allow a supercomputer to send algorithms to your pc so that system can process It’s data better and help solve calculations, then you will receive a certain amount of chances to enter a lottery to win a bitcoin depending on how many algorithms you processed.Check it out on bitcoin.Org

However there are certain things you should consider first, what supercomputer needs over hundred thousand other computers to help solve algorithms to ease the workload on their systems?Why is not the experts of bitcoin explaining this true method of bitcoin mining to help you understand?

Why is the normal answer, ” You are digging for coins on the virtual internet”, knowing this will make the average person think of (Mario brothers finding tokens)?:P

Last question to ponder why is bitcoin.Org saying the actual value of bitcoin has no cash value, if their is value?